Shotwell: cost of refurbishing F9 first stage was “substantially less” than half of a new stage; will be even less in the future. #33SS

If the stated aim is to get F9 flying within a day, I can't see how you'd spend even a small fraction of that.

Well, yes. Fairly obvious I would have thought· If they can get it down to 24 hrs, the costs are going to drop substantially (even if those 24hrs are spread over longer periods). To do that, huge sensor suites in the rocket, which are actually pretty cheap, and good engineering to fix parts that are determined to fail earlier than needed.

This one was expensive because the first of anything is usually a pathfinder, and much more than subsquents.

For the next few rockets SpaceX aims to refly, Shotwell said engineers will do about a tenth of the work that they did to refurbish the booster that launched March 30 from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida with the SES 10 communications satellite.

Costs = level of manpower "work" plus replaced parts value.

If no parts are replaced then the cost of refurbishment is just the labor. So we have a floor for minimum costs. Now add the average cost of replaced parts which would probably be only another $2M (an M1D costs less than $2M) and you get a value for refurbishment at somewhere around $2-4M.

That is a savings of $20M+ over a new booster. The question becomes how much will SpaceX allocate to paying back reusability development costs and how much to a customer discount.

I think the best strategy is to offer really good deals on bulk purchase (multi-launch of similar satellites), while keeping the price for single satellites only a bit below that at present.

Growth in the market is going to come through large constellations and repeated launch of similar missions (tourism, dragonlab, etc.). Over the next few years, this bulk market is one that SpaceX are uniquely able to fill. A $5 M profit margin on a 100 launch deal will make much more money than a $20 M margin on all the currently winnable commercial contracts for GEO communication satellites.

Growing the market is in my opinion the best strategy, but it will take many years for the market to react to price signals (very inelastic in the short term, it seems moderately elastic in the medium term, 5-10 years). So promising very low prices in 5 years for bulk purchase, while keeping prices high in the short term should maximise profit.

1) If the contract specify use of new booster customer will be charged an additional fee.

2) Based on the landing mission mode (RTLS, ASDS, EXPD) this will control the basic price. There will be probably a stiff penalty for use of EXPD mode. These prices would assume no specificity by the contract on vehicle usage status.

This type of pricing structure will probably take over once the usage rate of used boosters get to the 70% level. But until then the pricing structure is a price and then discounts.

I think that In the page they are advertising the planned second model of Falcon 9 which was supposed to have higher thrust "Merlin 1C+" engines, and they payloads are for that model. But instead they managed to make the even more powerful Merlin 1D engine and this version with the "merlin 1C+" never flew.

I think that In the page they are advertising the planned second model of Falcon 9 which was supposed to have higher thrust "Merlin 1C+" engines, and they payloads are for that model. But instead they managed to make the even more powerful Merlin 1D engine and this version with the "merlin 1C+" never flew.

Chris Whoever loves correction loves knowledge, but he who hates reproof is stupid.

To the maximum extent practicable, the Federal Government shall plan missions to accommodate the space transportation services capabilities of United States commercial providers. US law http://goo.gl/YZYNt0

For the next few rockets SpaceX aims to refly, Shotwell said engineers will do about a tenth of the work that they did to refurbish the booster that launched March 30 from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida with the SES 10 communications satellite.

The main kicker here is the effect such low refurbishment costs have on the cost per flight of an FH. At 10 flights per booster the average savings per flight is ~$20M for an F9. But for an FH it is $60M. Putting the pricing of an FH at about $15M more than an F9. If the new price of an F9 eventually gets to a value of $45M then the price for a FH would be ~$60M. That last flight flying as an expendable fully loaded would make the $/kg to LEO only $937.

Now drop the price another $3M for reusing the faring.Price $57M - $/kg $890.

Added:By 2020 the $/kg potential could be as low as $800 this is a factor of 10 from where the $/kg was at prior to F9's first flight in 2010 ($10,000/kg for an Atlas V 551 - best cost performance of all US LVs). So a factor of 10 over 10 years. What will the next ten years bring? $80/kg! (This is the goal of the ITS BTW).

A year ago, Jeffries put together a simple reusability model that was referenced by Space News. I found it pretty helpful at the time in thinking about the impact of reusability so I put it in a spreadsheet.

After talk of fairing and second stage reuse became more concrete, I broke out the costs into four components: first stage, second stage, fairing, and flight ops and calculated various reuse scenarios for Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy. Attached is the slightly more complicated model. Variables in red can be changed to suit.

Now for the other item. How long will it take for SpaceX to recover their $1B investment in reuse.

At 25 flights / yr and 70% being used boosters and SpaceX recovering $10M to pay against this charge per reused booster flight it will be 6 years for them to recover this development cost. Number of flight goes up or % of reused to new goes up then the time for this recovery will shorten. At 90% and 35 flights per year it would take only 4 years. So with SpaceX's flight projections the recovery period will be closer to 4 than it will be to 6. Putting recovery period ending in 2021. So in 2022 the prices could drop an additional $10M for an F9 and as much as $30M for an FH. The key here is that SpaceX is still making the same amount of profit per flight as they are now but at prices are a lot lower.

This is a very stiff competition price point profile. Other LV's would be hard pressed to keep up unless they were fully reusable. These price drops would occur only 2 years after the NG and Vulcan are operating.

I am not sure I buy that 1B number as an actual out of pocket cost... I think it might be padded for customer benefit. Remember that a lot of the experiments are done on hardware that otherwise is going into the ocean and is otherwise paid for. 1B buys a LOT of barge time/ tug time/fins and legs, etc

I would be interested in any rough budgets that people might have. We know tug rates and barge rates and stuff....

ok now i'm convincing myself that maybe it is 1B... but it's a self funded 1B ...

"I think it would be great to be born on Earth and to die on Mars. Just hopefully not at the point of impact." -Elon Musk"We're a little bit like the dog who caught the bus" - Musk after CRS-8 S1 successfully landed on ASDS OCISLY

The main kicker here is the effect such low refurbishment costs have on the cost per flight of an FH. At 10 flights per booster the average savings per flight is ~$20M for an F9. But for an FH it is $60M. Putting the pricing of an FH at about $15M more than an F9. If the new price of an F9 eventually gets to a value of $45M then the price for a FH would be ~$60M. That last flight flying as an expendable fully loaded would make the $/kg to LEO only $937.

Now drop the price another $3M for reusing the faring.Price $57M - $/kg $890.

Added:By 2020 the $/kg potential could be as low as $800 this is a factor of 10 from where the $/kg was at prior to F9's first flight in 2010 ($10,000/kg for an Atlas V 551 - best cost performance of all US LVs). So a factor of 10 over 10 years. What will the next ten years bring? $80/kg! (This is the goal of the ITS BTW).

Those kind of cost improvements, other than computers, don't tend to keep going at the same breakneck pace over the long haul without some other technological revolution. Something beyond re-usability and optimal scale will probably be needed to get costs down to $80/kg. I would be happy to see anything under $800/kg for the next couple of decades. Even $800/kg will probably be enough of a reduction to open up significant growth in a space economy.

And that's where the kicker comes in. Although some think that there are some fixed costs that will go up (and thus not be truly fixed) if the traffic volume goes up 10x, that is likely to drive down cost just from efficiency reasons. Not with the current ranges though.

Logged

"I think it would be great to be born on Earth and to die on Mars. Just hopefully not at the point of impact." -Elon Musk"We're a little bit like the dog who caught the bus" - Musk after CRS-8 S1 successfully landed on ASDS OCISLY